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And yet this "He Is" does not truly apply: the Supreme has no
need of Being: even "He is good" does not apply since it
indicates Being: the "is" should not suggest something predicated
of another thing; it is to state identity. The word "good" used
of him is not a predicate asserting his possession of goodness;
it conveys an identification. It is not that we think it exact to
call him either good or The Good: it is that sheer negation does
not indicate; we use the term The Good to assert identity without
the affirmation of Being.
But how admit a Principle void of self-knowledge, self-awareness;
surely the First must be able to say "I possess Being?"
But he does not possess Being.
Then, at least he must say "I am good?"
No: once more, that would be an affirmation of Being.
But surely he may affirm merely the goodness, adding nothing: the
goodness would be taken without the being and all duality
avoided?
No: such self-awareness as good must inevitably carry the
affirmation "I am the Good"; otherwise there would be merely the
unattached conception of goodness with no recognition of
identity; any such intellection would inevitably include the
affirmation "I am."
If that intellection were the Good, then the intellection would
not be self-intellection but intellection of the Good; not the
Supreme but that intellection would be the Good: if on the
contrary that intellection of the Good is distinct from the Good,
at once the Good exists before its knowing; all-sufficiently good
in itself, it needs none of that knowing of its own nature.
Thus the Supreme does not know itself as Good.
As what then?
No such foreign matter is present to it: it can have only an
immediate intuition self-directed.
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